Don’t fight the Turkish central bank

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Stop fighting the Turkish central bank. Since a shock interest rate cut earlier this month, the front end of Turkey’s bond yield curve has collapsed over 80 basis points, with two-year yields hitting seven-month lows of 7.84 percent. The curve is flattening as the 10-year sector starts feeling the heat as well. Whether it reflects investors’ faith in the central bank’s ability to safeguard economic growth while bringing down a record wide current account gap is another matter altogether. Bond investors have in fact been uneasy with the central bank’s experiments, fearing that overly loose monetary policy will cause an inflation shock down the road. But with more rate cuts clearly on the cards, investors are finding that Turkish rates, especially at the front end, are too attractive to miss. Especially as the central bank is shoring up the lira with daily dollar sales.

“Its difficult to go against the central bank. It’s been six months of mixed policy and finally international investors are getting the message,” says Luis Costa, head of CEEMEA currency and debt strategy at Citi. “Logically you should be paying long-end rates but it’s a challenging environment for that as the central bank bank is forcing the curve to be extremely flat.”
Markets are now pricing in another interest rate cut next week. How will markets react? The difference from the surprise rate cut on Aug. 3 is that other emerging central banks, fearful of a growth collapse, also now appear to be gearing up for policy easing. A dimming euro zone outlook means a poor outlook for exports from Turkey and other emerging markets. “There’s some realisation that the Turkish central bank may not be all that wrong,” says Zsolt Papp, who helps manage Swiss private bank UBP‘s emerging debt portfolio.

Investors have in fact realised Turkey is not overly concerned about inflation and that allows it more room to ease policy, Papp says, adding the moves in the Turkish curve indicate that is being priced in. Citi’s Costa agrees. “Policy is now clearly being driven by growth and that’s a massive game changer.”